


Little Drop of Poison

by aderyn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Doctor John, Episode: s01e01 A Study in Pink, Inspired by Music, John is a Very Good Doctor, UST, contact poisons &
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:11:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don’t make it any different, the words, the plain truth that this, like feeding or watching- sleep, is as intimate, is, maybe more so than sleeping-with, than sex, than communion…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Drop of Poison

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration from Tom Waits,["Little Drop of Poison"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45JdWBfLsA8)

_"I like my town, with a little drop of poison…” --Tom Waits_

 

_Hold still, hold still._

John has touched Sherlock’s (epidermis, _dermis_ even) under too many different conditions, fire, ice, rain, sleet, sweat, blood fresh and dried, fever, tented dehydration, tremor, induration, inflammation, contusion, abrasion, idiocy, incision. They don’t make it any different, the words, the plain truth that this, like feeding or watching-sleep, is as intimate, is, maybe more so than sleeping-with, than _sex_ , than communion, than kissing, than sinking slow in what might be called…

“Oh, thallium!” Sherlock shouts, interrupts John’s fingers with a bloodied hand.

 “He’ll keep at it ‘til we catch him,” Sherlock says, eyeballs the quick stitches, “so hurry up.”

John smirks and almost does.

“Sounds retro,” says John, and what he means is _brilliant forwards and back and I’ve never known anything more lethal than that._

“Percutaneous,” Sherlock mutters, something about _Paris Green, master poisoners, dimethylmercury, organophosphates, arsenates, lipid solutes, Young and teacups and rats and beetles and birds…_

“Hold still," John says, stops his hand.

*****

He thinks about it, of course he does.

The poison he dropped a man to stop, that set them in this artery, this hot-walled course with its heart-sounds.

_A little longer; a little longer._

_Stay._

The London outside thrums and locks, arrests and kills, secrets and harbours and creeps and courses and lives.

Inside this skin, this thin line, how sweetly it burns.

**Author's Note:**

> [Paris Green](http://periodictable.com/Items/033.10/)   
> [Graham Young](http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/weird/graham_young/index.html)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> "I like my town with a little drop of poison  
> nobody knows they're lining up to go insane  
> I'm all alone I smoke my friends down to the filter  
> but I feel much cleaner after it rains."
> 
>  [Tom Waits lyrics](http://www.tomwaits.com/songs/song/282/)


End file.
